The final draft of Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson's $1 billion operating budget for next year includes heavy investments in both school safety and social and emotional support for students.

Hopson wants to spend $2 million on 30 new school resource officers, $3.6 million on new security cameras, $4.3 million on 35 additional guidance counselors and $800,000 on 10 behavioral specialists.

Some of the new security officers would be assigned full-time to elementary schools, Hopson said, on an as-needed basis. Currently, only middle and high schools have designated resource officers, but those at the middle schools also patrol the elementary schools in their area.

"We need to have more of a presence in some elementary schools," Hopson said.

The proposal for new personnel is part of a plan for $38 million in additional investments across the district.

Hopson said he asked his finance team to come up with a balanced budget, and then from there, his team created a wish list worth about $128 million.

That was pared down to $38 million of investments, including growing Hopson's summer learning academy program to serve 10,000 students, $7 million toward teacher compensation, an $8 million redesign of the career and technical education program and six new truancy officers.

Literacy is also a top priority, with just 21 percent of third-grade students reading on grade level. The district plans to have a reading coach in every elementary school, and will spend $2.5 million on literacy coaches for middle and high school students who are behind.

To pay for the investments, Hopson is recommending the district dip into its savings by $25 million, and appeal to the Shelby County Commission for the remaining $13 million. He said he's hoping the county will utilize its expected surplus to benefit students.

"We’re hoping that they can just reallocate some of those dollars to help us make up the gap," he said.

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Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson (second from right) speaks during a board meeting last year regarding the budget.(Photo: Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)

Hopson presented his plan to the school board Wednesday afternoon. He previously revealed several of his priorities in an early draft of the budget, but the security investments and details on the emotional support personnel are new.

That draft came in February, before the shooting that killed 17 people at a Parkland, Florida high school on Valentine's Day.

If the board approves the budget in the coming weeks, Hopson will present it to the county next month.

Board chairwoman Shante Avant said the budget reflects priorities board members have stressed in recent weeks and months, especially social emotional learning, career and technical education and safety.

"The things that they have presented to us are aligned to things we’ve been discussing, and things we think will really help change the trajectory of our district," Avant said.

This is the second year in a row Hopson is able to present a proposal of investments to the board, and not recommendations for cuts.

Chief Financial Officer Lin Johnson said the district expects to have about $18 million more in state funding next year, due to stabilizing enrollment as well as investments from Gov. Bill Haslam's budget.

For years, the district was losing students, which means losing funding, to the municipal districts and the state-run Achievement School District. But the growth of the ASD has slowed significantly.

Hopson said he also plans to add more opportunities like Advanced Placement courses and dual enrollment for high-achieving students. A presentation to the board in January showed just 9 percent of high school students took an AP class in 2017-18.

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Shelby County Schools superintendent Dorsey Hopson talks with board member Billy Orgel during a Board and Finance Committee Meeting in March.(Photo: The Commercial Appeal files)

The teacher compensation money would be given to teachers in the form of raises but would be based on performance, the same as in previous years. The teachers' unions have resisted that idea, arguing all teachers should receive a cost of living increase.

Hopson said most teachers, however, receive high enough evaluation scores that about 95 percent of them should still see a raise.

The budget also includes Hopson's recently announced proposal to bring all full-time employees of the district up to a living wage of $15 an hour.

The total cost of that is about $2.4 million, but only about $900,000 from the district's general fund. The other positions are paid for through federal grants. The wage increase would affect about 1,200 people, or about 9 percent of the district's employees.

Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.